Twelve Miles Of Memory

Twelve Miles of Memory

Ballinger, Texas, is just one of dozens of tiny West Texas towns that are fading fast from the landscape but clinging to the map.

I loved going there as a child to visit my mother’s family. Their small-town life was magical to me. In Ballinger I watched Little League games and slurped pickle juice sno-cones. I swam and fished and stayed out too long in the sun, and I loved every minute I spent there.

Last week I returned but not with the same sense of expectation. My uncle’s frail health required him to be moved into a nursing facility; my aunt was now alone in the house they had long shared. My sister and I made the six-and-a-half-hour drive to check on them and found the town the same. It always is. But they were not.

“It just happened so fast,” she kept saying. “One day we were fine, and the next day we weren’t.” After a visit with him and lunch with her at the local senior center (we offered to cook; she insisted on going out), I asked if she’d like to go for a drive in the car. Her face brightened. So we did. We drove twelve more miles up the road to the place they had once farmed together. We looked, and she remembered.

Of all the sights I saw that day, here’s the one I’ll remember the most: in the nursing home, sitting in a chair with an oxygen cannula stretched across his face, my uncle reached out for my aunt’s hand, and she caught his in midair. They patted each other, then their hands settled together on the arm of his chair, still comforted that the other one was near enough to touch.

One day our God will restore what’s lost, mend what’s broken, refresh what is weary and old and worn. We’ll be at home again. And that will be a day for hallelujahs, oh yes, it will.

“God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”

Revelation 21:3-5